Vote NO on Proposition H on June 8
The issue is whether you approve of a twelve-year study costing over $13.1M of taxpayers’ money with nothing to show for it. The city now asks you to approve spending $2M or more. Vote NO on Proposition H to stop wasting taxpayers’ money on the tunnel study.
City staff reported that $7.9M is available to finish the tunnel study per agenda item 13(b) on page 114 of the 6 April 2010 complete council agenda: (a) $6M of our bridge toll revenue in our toll fund, (b) $1.4M of our federal taxes in the tunnel fund, (c) $500,000 of our taxes in our general fund.
Vote NO to:
(1) Redirect the remaining $6M toll revenue. Help residents in the Third & Fourth Street corridor with things like noise-reducing landscaping, double-paned windows, protective fencing and shuttle buses. These are the approved “lesser mitigation measures” referred to in the Settlement Agreement of 2000 between SANDAG and Coronado. In their “sole discretion,” prior and current councils intentionally ignored these measures and pursued a tunnel at all costs. According to the city, so far city council wasted approximately $2M of our bridge toll revenue from our toll fund on the tunnel project.
(2) Tell the misguided mayor and three city council members who support squandering the remaining $1.4M federal earmark that enough is enough. According to the city, council already wasted $6.7M of the total $8.1M federal tax money received on travel expenses and a study by tunnel-building company Parsons-Brinckerhoff that unsurprisingly concludes that Coronado needs a tunnel. The tunnel project earmark funds are the same shameful waste of taxpayers’ money that was spent on Alaska’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” We are not that kind of town so we don’t want to waste federal taxes on Coronado’s “Bridge for No One.”
(3) Allow $500,000 of our taxes in our general fund to be spent on higher and better uses instead of funneling money to special interests outside of Coronado, including three lobbying firms. According to the city, to date city council squandered $2.8M of our taxes from our general fund on the tunnel study. This is euphemistically called the “required local contribution.” The fact is that our federal tax earmark dollars can’t be spent without simultaneously wasting our local tax dollars.
Vote NO because the study is:
(A) POINTLESS. For obvious security reasons, the Navy can’t allow a tunnel to surface on the base and can’t make its employees use a tunnel. The study is all about a tunnel under Fourth Street from the toll plaza toward NASNI — not bridge, Strand or island-wide traffic relief. Due to the necessary and required security checkpoints on the military base, a tunnel will never eliminate traffic backup.
(B) TOO EXPENSIVE. The argument that “we should spend $2M or more to finish the tunnel study because we already spent $13.1M” defies logic. During the Cays debate, our opponents admitted that they cannot guarantee the cost or time. In fact, it might take up to $7.9M and longer than two years to finish the study before it is ready for us to review. Note that “public review” is currently slated for 2012. A $21M study is beyond outrageous.
(C) RECKLESSLY IRRESPONSIBLE. We shouldn’t consider a tunnel through two active earthquake faults and liquefaction-prone sand because no one knows when the next earthquake will occur. A tunnel for the exclusive use of sailors and those who support them in our post-September 11, 2001 world is too risky because it’s an obvious terrorist target.
(D) CONTRARY TO VOTERS’ WISHES. In 1998 voters tasked council to find funding for a bored tunnel. A minority of zealous tunnel advocates, including the current mayor and three council members, then wasted $13.1M of our money on a study of several models of bored and cut-and-cover tunnels. Remember the voters rejected a cut-and-cover tunnel in 1988. The truth is that the mayor and three council members failed to achieve their task of providing a realistic financial plan to build and maintain a $600M bored tunnel as directed by the voters in 1998. According to the city, the bad economic climate makes state, federal and Navy funding impossible so the current financial strategy to build and maintain a tunnel is risky bond debt propped up by parcel taxes, $10 bridge tolls during peak hours and increased transit occupancy taxes. A foreign for-profit company, like the one in charge of the now-bankrupt State Route 125 toll road in east San Diego county, is supposed to run the Coronado bridge toll program as part of a “public-private partnership.” This tunnel financing scheme, published in the financing strategy report and tolling feasibility studies, is completely unacceptable.
(E) DISINGENUOUSLY MISLEADING. City council already voted on 16 February 2010 by a vote of 4-1 (Barbara Denny dissenting) to pay Parsons-Brinckerhoff over $600,000 for the double-decker, four-lane, cut-and-cover tunnel model that surfaces OUTSIDE the base near Alameda Boulevard & Fourth Street. This double-decker, four-lane, cut-and-cover tunnel model — already approved by city council and already being studied by Parsons-Brinckerhoff — is the subject of Proposition H before you. Remember that Coronado voters rejected a cut-and-cover tunnel in 1988. The fact is that on 16 February 2010 the mayor and three city council members improperly approved a cut-and-cover tunnel model, which Caltrans did not require. The only requirement from Caltrans was that IF AND ONLY IF Coronado wanted to continue the tunnel project, then the city must consider a tunnel model that surfaces OUTSIDE North Island because the Navy in Washington, DC made it clear to Coronado in 2001 that a tunnel cannot surface on Navy property for obvious security reasons after 11 September 2001. The fact that Caltrans had to tell Coronado to study a tunnel model that surfaces OUTSIDE North Island reflects very poorly on the mayor and three city council members who are zealous tunnel advocates. The fact that the mayor and three city council members chose a cut-and-cover tunnel model adds insult to injury because Coronado voters rejected a cut-and-cover tunnel years ago. The fact that the mayor and three city council members already approved by a vote of 4-1 on 16 February 2010 a double-decker, four-lane, cut-and-cover tunnel model and are now through Proposition H seeking your approval to study a double-decker, four-lane, cut-and-cover tunnel model is disingenuously misleading at best.
(F) UNREALISTIC. The argument that we should “finish the study and place it on the shelf” for future consideration flies in the face of reason and common sense because data over two years old is obsolete. Far from being the helpless victim of governmental process, Coronado started the tunnel project and no one — including Caltrans — will object when Coronado stops it.
Vote NO because you want REALISTIC AND AFFORDABLE TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT:
Park & Ride, Commuter Ferry, Slugging (Casual Carpooling), MTS-Navy Express Buses, Navy Van Pools, Mass Transit. It’s unnecessary to finish the study in order to increase ridership because they aren’t major capital projects, like a tunnel. If just 600 commuters use each of these tools, they eliminate 1,728,000 annual vehicle roundtrips to our island and significantly reduce our carbon footprint, which is a federal law mandate. Currently over 600 commuters ride in the Navy Van Pool program. Smart transportation policy requires that our city works hard to continue to increase ridership in our existing transportation infrastructure beyond 600 commuters for each of these six tools.
Coronado consistently disparaged and actively undermined these REALISTIC AND AFFORDABLE TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT TOOLS since setting its course on building a tunnel. Therefore, the argument that they were “tried but aren’t enough so a tunnel is necessary” is patently false. One example occurred when the city council shut down the Coronado Transportation Management Association (CTMA) against evidence of the CTMA’s success — including the popular Island Jitney Bus service — and set up the Coronado Tunnel Commission filled with zealous tunnel advocates hand-picked by city council in violation of the city’s own policy of open applications and transparent competition for commissioner positions.
Government agency executives and regional elected officials actively support these REALISTIC AND AFFORDABLE TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT TOOLS to reduce vehicle trips to Coronado. For obvious reasons there is, and will be, no financial support for a Coronado tunnel from the state and federal governments, nor from the Navy in Washington, DC.
Vote NO to spend taxpayers’ money wisely and act on realistic, affordable traffic mitigation measures.
Respectfully,
Councilwoman Barbara Denny
Admiral Leon A. “Bud” Edney USN ret
